Palm Beach County Robots Rule At State Competition
Florida FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Education Foundation recently hosted the 13th Florida FIRST Regional Robotics competition for high school teams in Orlando and the robots from Palm Beach County powered to a win.
The Inlet Grove High School and Suncoast High School team sponsored by Pratt & Whitney/EDF/Florida Turbine Technologies took 1st place along with winning the Innovation in Control Award sponsored by Rockwell Automation. The Rookie All Star Award was presented to the first year team from Boca Raton High School sponsored by jcpenney/Slattery & Associates, Inc./Tyco Electronics/Florida Atlantic University/Scripps Research Institute/B.B.M. Structural Engineers. The Jupiter High School and William T. Dwyer High School team sponsored by Florida Turbine Technologies/Sikorsky won the Website Award.
A total of 60 teams of high school students from throughout Florida, Alabama, California, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Puerto Rico competed for multiple technical awards at the Regional competition. Founded by inventor Dean Kamen, FIRST a national non-profit organization created to inspire young people’s interest and participation in science and technology. Working with mentors, students have just six weeks to design, build, and test their robots to meet the season’s engineering challenge. Once these young inventors create the robot, their teams participate in Regional competitions that measure the effectiveness of each robot, the power of collaboration, and the determination of students.
The 2011 season culminates at the FIRST Championship in St. Louis, April 28-30. Participants are eligible to receive more than $12 million in scholarships. More than 50,000 high-school students from the U.S., Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Israel, Mexico, Turkey, and the U.K. will participate in this year’s competition.
The School District embraces the opportunity to expand our collaborative efforts through science and technology education with FIRST. Community partnerships such as these strengthen our organization and advance student science and technology achievement.
